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Yoko Ono has assembled a new group with a little help from her friends — including Eric Clapton, Paul Simon and son Sean.ZUMA Press

In 1969, an odd advertisement appeared in the music press: a page from the telephone directory with the superimposed phrase “YOU are the Plastic Ono Band.” The ad promoted “Give Peace a Chance,” a single recorded by John Lennon, Yoko Ono and a bunch of friends (such as Timothy Leary and comedian Tommy Smothers) during the couple’s famous “Bed-In” for peace.

Soon after, a different edition of Plastic Ono Band, this time including Eric Clapton and “Revolver” cover artist Klaus Voormann, performed at the Toronto Rock ’n’ Roll Revival festival, establishing the group as a concept embracing anyone who happened to be involved at any time. In his memoir, Clapton alluded to just how spontaneous that event was: “Before the gig, we did so much coke that I actually threw up and passed out. They had to take me out and lay me on the ground. And at the last minute we realized that we were going on between… I think it was Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, and we were terrified. But it turned out to be a great experience.”

On Tuesday night at BAM, Clapton, Voormann and guests such as Paul Simon and Martha Wainwright will join the latest incarnation of the Plastic Yoko Ono Band, currently comprised of son Sean Lennon and a largely Japanese ensemble, including musician-producer Cornelius and Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto. An additional “dress rehearsal” show has been added Monday night.

The latter-day Plastic Ono Band appears on the recent album “Between My Head and the Sky.” Just as her husband helped shape the group’s early days, her son is a big influence now.

“[Sean] said, ‘Mom, please come to Tokyo to play with my friends,’ ” Ono recalls. “First I said, ‘What am I going to do — play with his friends? Are they good enough?’ But they were fantastic! So when I was making the album I said, ‘Would you mind bringing them to New York?’ ”

Sean’s friends thus became part of a long, fruitful history that began when Ono and Lennon first met.

“Before John named the Plastic Ono Band — and it was very nice that he did — when I’d get a request for a lecture in a university or something, I used to go just by myself. No band, no nothing,” Ono says. “And I’d stand on a stage and say, ‘You, you, you — come up on stage.’ And that was my band. Those people would say ‘I don’t know anything about music.’ And I’d say, ‘Don’t worry about it’ because I trust in the superpower — the power that we all have.”

Though many regard her as a pioneer in the outer limits of rock, some doubt that Ono has any of that power as a musician. She’s still better known for shrieking than singing, a trait that surprised even early members of the band.

“During the Toronto concert, when Yoko started screaming, I thought she must have stepped on a nail or something,” Voorman says. “It took a while to catch up, but pretty soon I got the message. From that day on I thought, ‘Yoko is too much.’”